Like most brands, Pontiac has made its fair share of concept cars, most of which never saw the sales floor of a dealership. In some cases, that was a good thing. We're not sure we'd like the memory of the Trans Am to be tarnished by a station wagon version. But there were some real winners among these concept vehicles, and we wish some of them made it to production instead of the Pontiac-rebadged cars from other brands.
Some of the most interesting concept models include the 1964 Pontiac Banshee XP-833, which looked a lot like a Corvette. The 1971 Pontiac Pegasus was just as cool, and contained actual Ferrari parts. The 1985 Pontiac Trans Am Kammback is the aforementioned ill-conceived station wagon Trans Am. The 1997 Pontiac Rageous was the Swiss Army Knife of automotive utility and a paragon of awesomeness. And the 2007 Pontiac Solstice SD290 Concept was a funky race-car concept with a retro design.
Pontiac put out a ton of other concept cars, and a lot of them were downright cool. But these five models grabbed our attention. It's fun to look at the possibilities, and we think a lot of these concept models show the potential of what we could have had if Pontiac stuck around.
The 1964 Banshee makes just about every online list of Pontiac concept cars that should have made it to production. It's not hard to see why. It's a cool-looking little muscle car. However, we couldn't shake the feeling we had seen it before. In fact, this car looks like a straight-up copy of the Chevy Corvette with a few tweaks. It was even meant to fit in between the Corvette and Camaro as GM's answer to the Ford Mustang. But GM executives felt that the Banshee presented a threat to the Corvette because it looked so similar, so they ordered production to stop.
It was built under the supervision of the iconic John DeLorean. It included a six-cylinder engine that could crank out 155 horsepower, and it had a single-barrel carburetor, four-speed transmission, and a live rear axle. But a beefed-up version was promised with a four-barrel carburetor and a high-performance camshaft, and it would've delivered 215 horsepower.
Several other concept cars with the Banshee name would pop up through the decades. One such model, the 1988 Pontiac Banshee IV, was the design template for the hero car that served as KITT's new "body" in the 1991 made-for-TV reunion movie, "Knight Rider 2000." The producers couldn't get the Banshee, so they had to use a Dodge Stealth instead.
The 1971 Pontiac Pegasus is one sexy-looking sports car. And it should be, since it is part Ferrari. Several of its design elements, like the grille, front end, and fender vents, were all inspired by Ferrari, as were the custom leather bucket seats. The five-speed transmission was outright lifted from Ferrari, as well as the exhaust system, mufflers, and instrument panel gauges. Even the engine was contributed by Enzo Ferrari himself.
That engine was a 365 GTB/4 V12, which was normally designed with a top speed of 174 miles per hour — though the speedometer in the Pegasus goes up to 200. It could also crank out 352 horsepower. The V12 engine was a bit big for the engine bay of the Pegasus, which was built from a 1970 Firebird. They even had to take out the air-conditioning just to make room for it.
The Pegasus never made it to the showroom floor, but it was never meant to. It started as a sketch by a Chevy stylist made to freshen up the Camaro. But the head of GM Design took the sketches to Pontiac and had it developed specifically as a design concept vehicle. Elements of the Pegasus would eventually find their way on to newer iterations of the Firebird and Camaro.
You know how the '64 Banshee makes it to everyone's list of Pontiac concept cars they wish made it into production? Well, you probably won't find the Trans Am Kammaback on anyone's list. The Pontiac Trans Am was one of the coolest cars around in the '70s and '80s, especially the version with its "screaming chicken" hood decal. It was the car used for KITT in "Knight Rider", and it was featured in the "Cannonball Run" and "Smokey and The Bandit" series of movies. In fact, it starred in more of the "Smokey and The Bandit" movies than Burt Reynolds, "The Bandit", who had only a small cameo in the last movie.
But in 1985, the powers-that-were at GM decided to unveil the Trans Am Kammback. We can only speculate on what that conversation was like:
"You know what's wrong with the Trans Am?"
"What?"
"It's cool."
"Yes, we should do something about that."
And so, the Trans Am Kammback was built. Apparently, the GM executives thought this iconic muscle car should have a station wagon version. The roof was extended all the way over the back with large glass windows on the sides, presumably so that the kids who were thrown back there with the groceries could stare out and make faces at the drivers of other cars. At least, that's how we remember the back of station wagons being used. (We may or may not have made some faces in our time.) But, mercifully, this sin against all that is awesome never made it to production.
Terminox2004/Wikimedia Commons
One adjective that gets used a lot by people who write about cars is "aggressive." The word is normally used to describe front ends that are really prominent. Well, the front end of the 1997 Pontiac Rageous is so aggressive that it looks like it's ready to go into a school drop-off line just to bully the other cars for their gas money. And you know what? We like it.
Not only did this car look awesome, but it was everything all at once. We're not sure how else to describe a hatchback that had a V8 engine, rear-hinged doors, four bucket seats, and a drop-down tailgate which opened up to almost 50 cubic feet of cargo space. And the front end wasn't the only aggressive thing about this car, as the V8 engine could crank out 315 horsepower. The tech inside was fairly impressive for its time, too, featuring a heads-up display and a track ball built into the steering wheel. This car was cooler than any hatchback has a right to be, though we might be showing our age with that opinion. The Rageous was really the 1990s version of cool (we're surprised it wasn't named the "Rageous Xtreme").
Sadly, this car never made it to the assembly line, either. What did we get instead just three years later? The Aztek. We got a boxy SUV that tried so hard to be rad, but was about as cool as your mom's minivan. With decisions like this, no wonder Pontiac is no longer around.
The Solstice SD290 has to be the weirdest of all of Pontiac's concept cars, which is saying a lot. This car looks like it was made for loners, as it has seating for only the driver. And by seating, we mean a small slot that looks like it was cut into this box on wheels. The vehicle appears to be big enough to include at least one more seat, but that part has been covered up. Why? They wanted to keep the car as light as possible, so they left out front passenger and rear seating. A spouse and kids do tend to add a lot of extra weight to a car, after all.
Seriously, though, this model was meant to be a concept racing vehicle, and its design was inspired by retro single-seater race cars. The windshield was also sacrificed to keep things light, getting replaced with a small windscreen for the driver. For the same reason, this car does not have doors, a hard or convertible top, any sort of HVAC system, or windshield wipers. It only has a four-cylinder engine, but it's a direct-injected, turbocharged, 2.0-liter Ecotec engine that can push out 290 horsepower. It's also equipped with Hoosier R6 racing tires on forged 19-inch wheels. As weird as this car looks, it would probably be fun to drive around the track.
It's neat to look at Pontiac's concept cars to get a glimpse of what might have been. We would have liked to have taken several of these models for a spin. Pontiac may not be around anymore, but it made its mark on the auto industry with a string of attractive, head-turning cars.
